WHAT I'VE DONE AND THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO

For those of you that are wondering, I'm still alive. :) I've just been really busy with work that unfortunately, I've put this blog on the back burner. Things have been hectic lately and we've also managed to keep busy on the weekends as well. Since my last post, we've gone to a Dodger Game with our friends Alyssa and Rob and went to Disneyland in the evening to celebrate my godson's birthday. It was Adam's 1st time...I think he loved it. :)

We participated in the Relay for Life event in honor of Henry. Thankfully, he continues to do well. :) Gerric and I met up with everyone in the evening, just in time to experience the "Luminaria Walk." It was beautiful. I couldn't help but cry. It was something I'll never forget.

Two weeks ago, my husband took me to the No Doubt concert. It was awesome! Gwen Stefani's abs have never looked SO good! We had a great time!

The next day, I flew out to New York for 3 days and from there, headed to Panama for 7 days for another business trip. I just got back late Friday night/Saturday morning.

I'll be heading to Las Vegas for a friend's bachelorette party in a couple weeks. I'm looking forward to a weekend away with friends to relax and have fun. Then Gerric and I are heading back to Vegas in September. He's been wanting to see the show "Love" since it first came out so we're finally going to go see it. I'm so excited! Then...and this is the trip I'm counting the days for, at the end of October, we're heading to Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean! I CANNOT WAIT!!!!! I need a vacation so bad so this couldn't come any sooner! We're going for a week and staying at Beaches Resort. According to the Travel Channel, it's the 6th best resort in the Caribbean. EEK! So excited!

In the meantime, I have some dreaded meetings at work and some long nights in the office ahead of me. Lord help me. :( But all in all, things are good. We've made some small additions to our humble abode lately. We finally bought new doorknobs! It's the little things that excite me. :) We added a small swingseat to our front porch...we sat on it for a while yesterday and enjoyed the sun. It was perfect.

Next weekend brings more time with friends and hopefully more rest and relaxation. Until the next time...

CATCHING UP

I realized I haven't updated my blog on the events that took place during my holiday vacation. I'll post on that in a bit.

I wanted to follow up on my last post about Boey. There hasn't been a day that's gone by that I haven't thought about Boey and her family. I still can't believe this precious little girl is gone. I first found her website a couple years ago, shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer. I followed her journey so closely and felt in my heart that she would win her battle. I was so happy for her when they appeared on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and thought it was the start of happy memories and new beginnings for them. I have to keep reminding myself that Boey is now living cancer-free and that her family will continue to fight to see Boey's dreams become a reality. I guess one of the reasons why I took this news very hard was a selfish one. From what I knew, Boey was doing so well. I knew her family hadn't updated her blog in a while but I attributed that to them living happily and enjoying Boey's remission. So I got the news that she had lost her battle, it made me realize that things can change in an instant. Although Henry continues to do well, I'm so scared that his tumor will come back and we'll be back at square one. I stay positive as often as possible but I can't help but let the fear overcome my emotions from time to time. I just pray that Henry continues on his journey to healing and that Boey's family can find the strength to move on. I never did get a chance to meet Boey, but she held a very special place in my heart. I miss you Boey...now and always.

On a brighter note, here are some of the things I did during my holiday vacation:

A holiday party hosted by the fabulous Alyssa and her hubby: here are the girls, along with a picture of Alyssa's domestic diva mishap.

The boys at the soiree:

A Laker game with my hubby:

A fun night with friends playing Rock Band:

Bowling with one of my besties Kay and my husband's friend Jason:

This past Saturday we attended a 1st birthday party for one of our friend's little boys. The food was amazing and we had a great time as always with them. Yesterday I had brunch with a couple of girlfriends and later went to visit my beautiful new nephew since I hadn't seen him since coming back from New York.

Whew! That pretty much catches me up. The hubby went snowboarding today and I have a workout after work that I'm dreading. But looking forward to sweating off some calories. :)

EVERYONE...MEET BABY ADAM ALEXANDER

Baby Adam Alexander (his middle name was Diego's...he was given the same middle name in his honor)

Born on December 21st, 2007

at 7:52pm

6 lbs, 13 oz

I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update. I've been enjoying my vacation to the fullest but have also come down with a bit of a cold. Thank you all so very much for your well wishes. I'm so happy to report that my nephew is one week and one day old as of today. He's healthy, happy and just adorable. He's gotten cuter each day I've seen him. It's amazing how one can love a little person so, so much in so little time.

I ended up leaving work on Friday at 2:30 and got to the hospital at about 3pm. My mom and eldest sister were there already. When they checked my sister into the room she would stay in, they connected her so we could hear Adam's heartbeat. It was such a wonderful sound.

They finally started the Pitocin at about 5pm. The contractions were starting to come on strong but since my sister has a very strong threshold for pain, it took her a while to ask for the epidural. The nurse came in to see how far she was dialated. When she did that, the baby's heartbeat slowed down. Our hearts sank. The nurse was surprised and told us that Adam did not like her touching his head. My heart must've been racing so fast. But she assured us that it was normal. It was after 7pm when she finally asked for the epidural but the nurse told us that it would be a while since the anesthesiologist was out and they were going through a shift change at the time. I could see the pain in my sister's face and about 1/2 an hour later, she mumbled that she wanted to push. We knew it was time then. I took my mom out of the room and we went out to the waiting room with everyone. It was a short while before we got the word that Adam had arrived into the world. It all happened so quickly.


When we walked in, Adam was being weighed and was having his perfect little feet footprinted. His cry was the best noise in the world.

Love at first sight

With her doctor

...and baby makes five

Big brother Erik meeting his brother for the 1st time

Adam went home with mommy the next day at about 6pm. It was a wonderful Christmas for all of us having him home. We thank God for his health. He's just perfect.

I'll fill you all in on the rest of my vacation soon, which will include a couple holiday parties and Laker Game. I hope you had a merry Christmas!

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND REWIND

*sigh* It was so nice having 5 days off of work and only having to use one of those days a vacation day. But now I’m back and at work.

My Thanksgiving was very nice this year. We started with Gerric’s family in the afternoon. Luckily, we’ve never had to argue about whose family to spend it with year after year since his family has always celebrated it at lunchtime. So we arrived at his dad’s house at twelve o’clock and waited for the rest of the clan to arrive. Lunch was delicious this year. His family is not very “traditional” when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner so other than store bought turkey, stuffing and mashes potatoes; we also had roast beef and barbeque ribs. Everything was delicious! We also took advantage since we were all together and chose our Secret Santa names. Since my husband has such a big family and recently, he’s had a lot of cousins move here from the Philippines, we do a gift exchange so we’re not all forced to buy a million gifts. We left to our next destination a little after 3pm.

It’s become a tradition in my family to have Thanksgiving dinner at my brother’s house in Lake Forest. So this year was no different. We arrived a little after 4pm and shortly thereafter, already found myself with a glass of wine. It was a nice evening. My husband brought along an old videotape of my family and it was nice watching my nieces and nephews when they were just babies. How time flies. Dinner was amazing, as it is every single year. Mom made the turkey and stuffing, my eldest sister made the mashed potatoes, brought the bread and ham, and gave cranberry sauce a try for the first time and my sister Erika made the green salad and brought the pies. I was in charge of drinks…I got off way too easy. J We had plenty of food and we were very thankful for that. My brother toasted us and I said a few words before dinner. I wished I had prepared something nicer since I didn’t say everything I wanted to say but what I did say came from my heart and that’s what matters. The rest of the evening was great. We finally all left at about 10:30pm, each with our share of leftovers to take home.

Our centerpiece...complete with my nephew's picture on it.

Friday was very laid back. We relaxed and finished packing for our trip up North. Our flight left after 5pm. It was a short hour and twenty minute flight.


Jessica picked us up, who is the wife of Gerric’s best friend, Patrick. She arrived with their little girl, Alexya. I fell in love with her. I already kept up with Jessica’s blog every day so I knew what Lexy looked like already but she was so much prettier and adorable in person.


We had such a great time with them this weekend. We relaxed on Friday night and had pizza for dinner. The next day was Lexy’s first birthday party. We had a great time and little Lexy did too. She was so good about opening her own gifts and enjoyed the attention she got all day. She’s such a doll. She just started walking so it was SO cute seeing her waddle all day long. It made me anxious to have kids of my own. But at the same time, it reminded me what a huge responsibility it is to have kids.


That night after the birthday party, we all watched our wedding video and I had a great time reminiscing. Sunday we relaxed all day and I had a chance to see Jessica and Patrick’s wedding video. Gerric was the best man and although I had seen it once before already, it was so nice seeing it again since I really got to know Patrick and Jessica this weekend. They were wonderful hosts to us. That night, I helped Jessica make lasagna for dinner. It was delicious! Monday morning, I slept in so while I showered and got ready, the guys, Jessica and Alexya went to the park so the boys could play a little basketball like the good ‘ole days. I know Gerric had a great time hanging out with his buddy. We left yesterday at 2pm. It was a great trip and I truly hope to see them again soon. I miss Lexy already. :(

She wasn't exactly happy to take a picture with us. :)

After we arrived yesterday, we took a short time to freshen up and drove to Cal State Long Beach, our alma mater, since our friend was actually going to be speaking at a meeting for the American Marketing Association. My husband and I were members while we were in college and that’s actually how we met. It was so weird being back on campus. Everyone looked so young! It was a great night.

The rest of the evening, we had Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner and watched some TV before we finally went to bed. It was a great weekend. I hope everyone had a wonderful & restful holiday.

ALOHA EVERYONE! I'M BACK!!!

My first day back at work was yesterday but other than catching up on some work, it took me nearly all day to catch up on my favorite blogs so I didn't have the time to update my own! Anyway, I can't tell you how depressing it is to return to work after a vacation. I'm still dragging today and we were back late on Saturday night (close to midnight actually). Well, what can I possibly say about Maui that everyone doesn't already know? It's beautiful and peaceful. I loved it all. But what I loved most was just being away from work, away from traffic, away from everything.

Saturday -

I'll start my day-to-day recap with Saturday when we did the Brain Tumor walk in honor of my brother-in-law Henry. It was a great experience, one that I will never forget. It was very bittersweet being there...I felt honored to be a part of such a great cause but I hated that this terrible disease has invaded our family and specifically someone I love very much. At the end of the 5k walk, they had some speakers...some were family members who had lost loved ones due to a brain tumor and others who were survivors. I felt inspired by them and prayed to God that one day, Henry would be up there telling everyone his survival story.

Our crazy team...we all wore t-shirts with a picture of Henry and our team name, "Fishing 4 a Cure" since Henry loves fishing.

My sister's sign worn on her back


A dedication my sister made for her husband

One of the speakers said something very meaningful that stuck with me. She thanked everyone for being there and said she hoped we wouldn't need to be back next year because we will have found a cure. How I hope that's true.

Later that afternoon, we had a birthday party for Henry. My sister surprised him with some of his co-workers and he was so happy to see them. We all had a great time and this was a very special birthday for us since he has been through so much this year.

Henry with a few of his co-workers

With his 2 kids

Here's so many, many more birthdays for Henry. His next MRI is fast approaching on November 14th so please continue to pray for nothing but the best results. :)

Sunday -

We had a 10:35am flight out to Maui so we woke up, went to the airport and flew 5 hours to get to our destination. I was starving when we arrived so I bought the first thing I saw...

...a hot dog! It was SO good.

Once we got our luggage (which by the way, I totally overpacked!), we proceeded to get our rental car. Our ride was a little black Mazda. Nope, no convertible for us. :(

We then followed the map to our hotel/condo. It was a beautiful drive along the coast. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. When we arrived, I was happy with what I saw since I wasn't sure what to expect. We opted out of staying at a lavish resort, since we are trying to save for a house but we were happy with our decision.

Our view from the balcony...

After settling in, we grabbed dinner at the restaurant located in our resort, the "Beach Club." I told myself I would try to be good since I had lost a total of 5 pounds in two weeks but it was SO hard to resist good food...so let's just say I haven't weighed myself since we've been back. I'm in denial! Our dinner was okay...the food was pretty good at the restaurant, nothing spectacular. After dinner, we walked around our resort and ended the night by watching the sun set. It was perfect. I tried to take it all in.

Monday -

We woke up to some very loud birds outside on the resort grounds...sweet, peaceful, yet annoying all at the same time!

We laid out at the beach for a while and then moved over to the pool to take in the sun's rays. The water was cold but beautifully blue in color.

After we were all sunned out, we showered up and drove out the little city of Lahaina and had dinner at a restaurant called "Cheeseburger in Paradise." And YES IT WAS!

I had the "Cheeseburger Island Style"...it was delish!

After a delicious dinner, Gerric fed his sweet tooth with a scoop of ice cream (He's such a sucker for ice cream). I just watched him eat it. I was so full!

Tuesday -

It became our morning routine to go out and soak up the sun. The weather was perfect. We'd catch some tropical rain once ina while but they lasted a short time and the sun was still out so it was fine. After our morning ritual, we showered up and this time, headed out to "Whalers Village" where we had lunch at Leilani's.

That evening, we had dinner reservations at David Paul's. That was one of our most expensive meals but everything was delicious! They even gave us a complimentary dessert to share in honor of our two year wedding anniversary!

We spent the rest of the evening strolling the streets of Lahaina and called it a night since we had an early morning ahead of us.

Wednesday -

Let me preface this by saying that I don't know how to swim so I am pretty much deathly afraid of the ocean. I imagine myself either drowning or getting eaten by a shark (yet I love vacationing in tropical places!). Well, my dear husband wanted to experience snorkeling in the ocean waters of Maui so I agreed, as long as I could stay in the boat. We woke up super early to get our adventure started. It was a pretty large group and thankfully, I wasn't the only one that stayed in the boat! The tour took us to two different locations...Molokini Crater and to an area off the shores of Wailea to snorkel with green sea turtles. The entire trip was about 5 hours long. I usually don't tend to get seasick but the waters going to Molokini were very choppy which made for a rocky trip. My husband didn't do so well either. We were so miserable at one point that we couldn't wait to get on dry land. In fact, he promised me that he would never make me go out on a boat again! Yes, we both got really seasick (poor fishies in the ocean don't know what hit them!) but at least we can say we went snorkeling in Maui...okay, okay, my husband went snorkeling.

This is Molokini Crater...

This was our 2nd destination of the day...

I guess sea turtles do live here!

My own little sea turtle...heehee, I was cracking up at how he looked!

After our trip was over and we kissed the ground we were walking on (well, not literally but we wanted to!), we had lunch at Maui Tacos. It was really good. Nothing like mom's cooking but it did the job. :) Later that night, we headed back to Whaler's Village and had dinner at Hula Grill. Since my tummy was still very unsettled from the seasickness, all I had a frui plate but it was delicious! The fruit there was unbelievable...sweet and perfect!

We strolled Whalers Village some more and then headed back to call it a night.

Thursday -

Thursday morning we woke up to a beautiful sight...a rainbow!

We got ready to hit the beach again. It was extremely windy that day at the beach so we were being pelted with sand grains and a sunny tropical rain! We decided to let the winds and rain subside and grabbed some breakfast. After that, we hit the beach again and the weather was much better.

After a few hours in the sun, we grabbed some ice cream at the nearby shop and got ready for our evening. That night, we had dinner at Kimo's. Everything was delicious! I had the ribs and chicken, accompanied with a Blue Hawaii drink...YUM!

I was a "little" sunburned" that night. :)

Our nights always ended pretty early - we definitely did a lot of relaxing. :)

Friday -

Friday was our last full day in Maui. It was so sad that the week was over. We started with breakfast at Compadres restaurant and strolled around the island of Maui for one last time. We got home early enough to take a nap since we had tickets for a Luau that evening. We had originally planned on going to the Old Lahaina Luau which had come highly recommended to us. However, when we arrived on Sunday and wanted to buy our tickets, we were told it was sold a month out. Wow! So another Luau was recommended to us which was smaller in that instead of about 600 people, there was only 150 and at this one, we would have our own table and our own waiter. We were sold! So that night, we experienced a Luau at the "Feast at Lele."

The show was awesome. I enjoyed every minute of it. We were so happy yet so sad to be leaving the next day.

We had a 5-course dinner, which consisted of food from different islands: Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti and Samoa. I even had some of the Mahi Mahi with mango salsa! It was a perfect way to end our Hawaii vacation.

Saturday -

The next morning, we got ready, checked out and left for the airport. We got one last bite at the airport and we were on our way. So depressing. Jolene was very sad...

Overall, we had a wonderful time and would definitely go back. When there's so many other beautiful places to visit in this world, I don't think we'll return anytime soon but I'm so happy to be able to say we've actually been to Maui. We loved it.

We landed in Los Angeles close to midnight and since I was wide awake, I unpacked that night and went to bed at 2am. On Sunday we just did laundry all day long and grabbed some dinner. It was SO hard coming back to work yesterday. Now I'm getting ready for another trip to New York for work this coming Sunday. Lord help me. It's going to be a LONG week next week.

I better get some work done today. I didn't realize how long it took me to do this update. Thanks for reading everyone!